Hepburn v. Griswold

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effect on Legal Tender Act

In
Hepburn v.
Griswold (Feb. 7, 1870), the Court ruled by a four-to-three majority that Congress lacked the power to make the notes legal tender. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, who as secretary of the Treasury during the Civil War had been involved in enacting the Legal Tender Act, wrote the majority opinion, declaring that the congressional authorization of greenbacks as legal...

...was charged with a court-packing scheme, and internal dissension with the court was exacerbated. The very day that the two appointees were nominated, the Supreme Court announced its decision in
Hepburn v.
Griswold (1870), a case that involved the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Act of 1862. The court, in a 5–3 vote (including a vote for the majority by the ailing...

Miller’s dissent

...federal and state loyalty oaths required of lawyers, teachers, and clergymen immediately after the war. His dissenting opinion in favour of “greenbacks” as war-emergency legal tender (
Hepburn v.
Griswold, 1870) became the majority’s stand when the court reversed itself the next year and led to the permanent legitimation of paper money in the United States.